From Apples to Popcorn, Climate Change Is Altering the Foods America Grows

The impact may not yet be obvious in grocery stores and greenmarkets, but behind the organic apples and bags of rice and cans of cherry pie filling are hundreds of thousands of farmers, plant breeders and others in agriculture who are scrambling to keep up with climate change.

Montmorency tart cherries waiting to be harvested
 in Leelanau County in northern Michigan.

Drop a pin anywhere on a map of the United States and you’ll find disruption in the fields. Warmer temperatures are extending growing seasons in some areas and sending a host of new pests into others. Some fields are parched with drought, others so flooded that they swallow tractors.

Decades-long patterns of frost, heat and rain — never entirely predictable but once reliable enough — have broken down. In regions where the term climate change still meets with skepticism, some simply call the weather extreme or erratic. But most agree that something unusual is happening.

Read the story from The New York Times by Kim Severson - “From Apples to Popcorn, Climate Change Is Altering the Foods America Grows.”

How climate change makes trees vulnerable to pests

Beetles no bigger than a grain of rice are destroying conifer forests, and their greatest weapon is invisible.

Tiny beetles, huge damage.

Six: “Bark beetles are tiny little insects. They kill trees by actually releasing these odors, these pheromones that attract other beetles to the tree, and if they’re lucky enough to attract literally hundreds to thousands, they can overcome the tree’s defenses and then they can raise their young under the bark.”

Entomologist Diana Six of the University of Montana says that in the past, bark beetle populations were generally not large enough to do widespread damage.

But warmer temperatures are allowing more beetles to survive the winter. And, the longer growing season gives insects more time to reproduce, so populations are booming.

Read The Climate Connections story by Daisy Simmons - “How climate change makes trees vulnerable to pests.”